


In the cherry blossom's shade

by Eliane



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: First Kiss, First Time, Happy Ending, M/M, Minor Character Death, Obsessive Sherlock, Pining Sherlock, Post-Season/Series 03, Sleeping Together
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-10
Updated: 2014-10-10
Packaged: 2018-02-20 16:25:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2435321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eliane/pseuds/Eliane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"This isn’t new. Sherlock has already done this – has gone through cities, and dingy hotels, and sleepless nights but it was different before. John wasn’t there before. </p>
<p>They’re in this together."</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the cherry blossom's shade

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [Allison](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Sher_locked_up/pseuds/wearitcounts) and [cwb](http://archiveofourown.org/users/cwb) for the beta and making this readable!
> 
> Thanks to Jen for all her encouragements along the way, as always! My Mary is heavily based on her beautiful beautiful fic fox confessor which you should all read!
> 
> The title comes from this quote: “In the cherry blossom's shade there's no such thing as a stranger” by Kobayashi Issa.

They sleep in the same bed every night. They sleep with their limbs entangled, as close to each other as they can, they sleep as if somehow they could merge into each other and become one being. 

The light of day does nothing to change that. They stay together, John’s body always shielding Sherlock’s **,** Sherlock’s hands always a breath away from John’s hips, shoulders, neck.

They’re not together. They don’t make love, they don’t kiss. They’ve just lost the other so many times that it’s unthinkable for them to be apart, that it’s impossible not to be within touching range. 

Things are still left unsaid. Love confessions have never passed their lips. 

They’re running. But this time, they’re running together. 

\---

The first time they sleep together is also the first time John sees Sherlock’s scars. He traces them – fingers soft and light touches. They’re not facing each other but Sherlock can feel John’s jaw clenching, Sherlock can imagine John’s eyes darkening, John wanting to break something, to punch something.

Sherlock isn’t sure about a lot of things when it comes to John, but he’s sure that John wouldn’t ever let anyone go unscathed if they ever hurt Sherlock.

That’s why they had to go away, after all. That’s why they’re chasing after Mary.

\---

John keeps his gun tucked into his jeans. Sherlock loves both the gun and the jeans. Sherlock loves the jeans on John, how when John wears them – always able to reach for his gun – he suddenly becomes the soldier again, the one who will shoot a cabbie to save a man he has only known for one day. 

Sherlock’s never wanted protecting. But when it’s John doing it, he finds that he doesn’t mind much. 

This isn’t new. Sherlock has already done this – has gone through cities, and dingy hotels, and sleepless nights but it was different before. John wasn’t there before. 

They’re in this together.

\---

When Sherlock was dead he read a lot. He used to pick the first book in the airport shop, the first book that seemed to be about going away and adventures, and read it. Sherlock always loved adventure books. He remembers being five and reading Jack London, he remembers being six and reading the _Lord of the Flies_ , he remembers being seven and reading _Treasure Island_.  Sherlock was going away from John, but that didn’t mean Sherlock had to go away from himself.  So he read adventure books and remembered what it felt like - to be a child. That’s how in a relais in Charles de Gaulle airport he came across Bernard Giraudeau. He doesn’t remember everything but he remembers this sentence. 

_I want to believe that sacrifices have a meaning._

Sherlock isn’t sure how much he’s sacrificed **,** if those sacrifices even made sense. But they were all in the name of John and that, surely, must mean something. Must count for something. Surely it must mean that Sherlock has learned to love.

He thinks that it wasn’t a sacrifice as much as an ordeal. 

Ordeals make sense. If you survive them, you’ve been deemed worthy. 

Sherlock is with John now. They will survive and be deemed worthy.

\---

The French for ordeal is _ordalie_. It’s about God’s judgement. It means you’ve been judged by water, fire, air, and earth. It means the only way to win is to survive.

In English, ordeal is about a frustrating, inconvenient experience you have to go through. 

Sherlock doesn’t believe in God. He believes in survival **,** though. He believes in a word of which his own language has lost the meaning. 

Some words should remain special, almost never used, precious.

While he was dead Sherlock got a tattoo on his left shoulder. _Ordalie_ is what was written. Survival is what it means.

_John, I’m coming back to you_ , is what Sherlock has inked across his skin. 

\---

Tattoos are stories made of ink that live underneath your skin.Monuments to tragedies about which you would rather not speak. They’re anchors when you have nothing else to hold on to.

Sherlock smokes a cigarette and thinks about the next one.

\---

It’s spring in New York and the cherry trees are blossoming in Central Park. The golden light of the evening is illuminating the **r** eservoir. They’re staying **f** or the week in a rental flat on 55th street and 3rd avenue. Sherlock doesn’t sleep. 

Their limbs are tangled and the only thing that prevents them from being absolutely naked against each other is the thin fabric of their underwear. It’s like a last barrier, a last attempt at keeping things platonic before they dive into – whatever is next. John sleeps and Sherlock watches him, watches his too-long eyelashes resting on the skin of his cheekbones, the sandy hair framing his forehead, the jaw that clenches even in his sleep – as if he can never stop worrying. Sherlock watches him with awe and wonder. Sherlock watches him, pressed against him, finding absolution in John’s strength, in John’s unwavering faith. He knows he relies too heavily on John (that, one day, it will break John) but John is warm and steady and strong and Sherlock has always felt small and inadequate next to him, next to the silent force that emanates from him. Sherlock wishes he could disappear into John.

Sherlock comes even closer to John and nuzzles his face into John’s neck. John is asleep – still asleep – and makes a contented noise, his arm bringing Sherlock nearer to him. Sherlock’s mouth is so close to John’s skin that he can’t help himself; he leaves tiny, wet kisses against John’s neck just to taste John’s skin. Sherlock wants more. He wants John’s flesh against his teeth and John’s salty flavour in his mouth and John’s sweat against his body. Sherlock presses himself against John and John’s eyes fly open. Sherlock looks at them and they are dark blue (saved by an ordeal, Sherlock thinks) and they’re warm and they say _you’re home_ and Sherlock is helpless to convey _yes, I am_. So Sherlock kisses John’s hair (it’s greying and Sherlock loves it, thinks it makes John look even more dignified) and sighs.

Sherlock is in John’s arms and he feels as happy as he’s ever been. He knows that John is his best friend – John told him so – he knows that John doesn’t want anything else from him and this, _the affection **,**_ is enough. John cares for him and takes care of him. Sherlock is as happy as he can be, without John being in love with him.

There, nestled in John’s arms, Sherlock finally falls asleep.

\--- 

They’re in a Starbucks. John insisted on going there, claiming that it would be different than the English ones and Sherlock reluctantly agreed. Sherlock doesn’t eat. Sherlock feels like he’s twenty again but instead of being high on cocaine he’s high on John, on John’s face and the perfect jeans that hang on his hips. Sherlock is high on the bulge John’s gun makes in his trousers, Sherlock is.

\---

While he was dead, Sherlock promised himself he would survive this ordeal and would bring John back with him to all the cities he went through without him.

He never thought he would need to bring John with him to track down John’s murderous wife.

Life is funny, Sherlock thinks. As funny as heartbreak can be.

\--- 

Sherlock loved Mary. Loves her still. He certainly doesn’t like her or trust her.

But there’s something in Mary, something infinitely breakable. It’s right in the middle of her intransigence. It’s in her refusal to be anything else but herself. It’s in how she loved John and how Sherlock loves John and how they both love John. Sherlock hopes he’s better at loving John, though,that he will never kill to keep John **(** is that what he did? what they’re doing ?). But he can’t hate her for loving John, for wanting to keep him. He can’t hate her, even though they have to kill her.

\---

New York is a dead end. They leave for Dubai. Sherlock will miss the cherry trees. 

\---

In Dubai they book two different rooms. It doesn’t prevent them from sleeping in the same one, every night. In Dubai the air is thick and warm, andtime seems to go slower during the day, as if the warmth is enough to still everything. Sherlock leads and John follows. Sherlock is clever – Sherlock is brilliant, Sherlock sees patterns that no one else can see, elaborates systems where all the clues fit. Sherlock draws conclusions that are accurate.

Sherlock doesn’t catch Mary.

He curls up in the too big bed in the too big hotel room in this too big city and listens to the noises of the cars outside.

John puts his gun on the bedside table – because John wants to protect him, always protect him, Sherlock thinks – and watches Sherlock.

John is both tiny and strong and he takes up so much space in the room, in Sherlock’s head, that he could as well be made of marble and gold.

John watches Sherlock from underneath his eyelashes and Sherlock quivers under his stare. And then John gets under the sheets, and looks at Sherlock, really looks at him and says, “Come here.” 

So Sherlock does. 

And then John’s arms are encircling him, holding him, protecting him and Sherlock sighs in relief. John kisses Sherlock’s curls and Sherlock almost purrs but he can’t – he can’t. They’re not like that. 

If Sherlock could, though, if he was allowed, he would rub himself all over John’s body, he would imprint himself on it and let John do the same. They would be the two halves of a same whole, a same being. Sherlock looks at John’s chest, John’s hipbones, John’s thighs and wants to bite them, carve himself into them. John is the most beautiful thing Sherlock has ever seen. He just wishes he had seen it sooner.   

\---

When Sherlock was a child he wanted to be a pirate. He read all the books and loved them for what they were. Books about adventures and freedom and choosing your own path.

Sherlock didn’t know then, that his path had a name, and that its name was John.   

\---

Rome, during the summer, is unbearable. Sherlock has no idea why Mary would even want to drag them there. 

Their hotel room has a balcony where Sherlock smokes cigarette after cigarette. He takes in the lazy summer afternoon and ignores the amount of alcohol John is drinking. They’re bored and go visit the Palatine Hill. It’s all dry herbs and dirt burned by the sunshine and cypress trees and Sherlock absolutely hates it but adores John loving it.

Sherlock thinks they could have been happy here, under other circumstances.

Sherlock thinks they could have been young and innocent here, students falling stupidly in-love (maybe a year abroad?) and have had endless summer nights and spring afternoons and autumn kisses in the rain.

The heat is unbearable.

Sherlock thinks about obscure French poetry, about a book he once bought in a dingy bookshop in Switzerland. It starts –

_We had sole tenancy of our life and summer_ – 

They catch sight of Mary while they’re eating in a small pizzeria near the Pantheon and leave everything forgotten to run after her. 

They run through sunshine lit alleys and lose Mary in the shadows of orange and ochre painted buildings. Rome is like a museum where every street has something that reminds you of the past. It’s antique vestiges that you weren’t expecting but catch your eye around the corner of a street.

Sherlock never cared much about history. He cares about running and John following him.

The truth is, he’s the one who has been following John all this time. 

\---

They go back to their hotel and John lies on the bed. Sherlock wants to read him poetry. He wants to compose poems about John but Sherlock is only good at composing music.He wonders if it would be enough. 

Sherlock watches John’s thighs clad in those jeans and wants to get down on his knees and press his face into them, into this slight gap between them and smell John. Sherlock wants to taste John, push his tongue between John’s arse cheeks and inhale him. Sherlock has never wanted anyone before, doesn’t know what’s normal and what isn’t, what’s appropriate and what isn’t. He wants to have all of John in his mouth, on his tongue. He wants John’s DNA to pass into his. 

Sherlock is in love with John.

He never thought it would be so devastating.

\---

They leave Rome but they don’t go far. Or at least Mary doesn’t go far.

They are, after all, only following her. 

Trying to catch her. 

That’s how they end up in Paris. Sherlock is tired of shitty hotels and insists they stay in a nice once for a change. John says it’s a waste of money and Sherlock answers that it’s Mycroft’s money so who cares. 

John has nothing to retort.

Sherlock books the nicest hotel near the Monceau park. John thinks it’s boring and, to be fair, so does Sherlock but he’s certainly not going to admit it. The view is nice anyway. The first day the **y** play tourists and have a French breakfast in a café. The waiters are horribly rude, even though they’re being judged according to Sherlock’s standards, and Sherlock doesn’t like the food but John seems to be having fun. 

They go to the Louvre and spend an afternoon sunbathing in the Luxembourg, they have a hot chocolate at Angelina and they eat sandwiches on the steps of the Panthéon. John holds Sherlock’s hand in his and doesn’t let go. Sherlock has no idea what it means but he’s not going to complain.

Mary is a shadow that constantly evades them. 

Sherlock is starting to wonder if they’re trying to catch her or catch what they mean for each other.  

He squeezes John’s hand harder.

\---

In Tokyo Sherlock can see Mary in every shadow of every cherry tree. Because Mary is spring and light and death that will creep up on you when you least expect it. Mary is beautiful and lethal and Sherlock knows the only reason they’re still chasing after her is that she wants them to. He doesn’t know why.

Maybe she likes it. Maybe she knows she’ll have to die at the end and wants to make it entertaining. Maybe she still loves them.

Tokyo is the kind of city where you get lost but John is Sherlock’s anchor and Sherlock can’t get lost there.

In their hotel room there’s a bouquet of flower **s** waiting for them. Cherry blossoms. The card says _I miss you both. Syisp._ It’s a rendez-vous.

\---

They find themselves in St Petersburg. It’s not winter but it might as well be. Sherlock has been to Russia before – when he was dead **-** but never here and he’s surprised at how similar to New York the smell of the subway is. Like melted iron. Like faded cherry blossoms.

\---

When he was away, Sherlock read Chekhov, _The Cherry Orchard_. He thought it was appropriate, at the time, to read a book about people having to get away from what they loved the most.

They don’t sleep in a hotel. They choose to rent an apartment on the outskirts of town **,** and Sherlock remembers coming to Moscow and reading Mayakovsky. Sherlock remembers Berlin and his Trakl poetry book, _Er wahrlich liebte die Sonne_.

He remembers Prague, Kundera and Lermontov.

\---

When they go back to their flat, the first night, it’s past midnight but it’s summer and the sun is just only descending. The sky is painted black and blue, shades of gold and purple and Sherlock wants to cry. 

They disrobe and get into their tiny bed. They’re facing each other. Sherlock thinks they’ll just go to sleep, entangled, like they have done for hundreds of nights now but it doesn’t happen. When Sherlock tries to get closer to John, John looks at him steadily, unblinkingly; blue eyes wide open and says: “I don’t think so.”

Sherlock doesn’t know what to do; he thought this was a given, curling against John, into John, pressing light kisses on John’s body parts that weren’t his mouth (or cock), that it was allowed. He curls on the other side, his back facing John and whispers, “Ok then,” because that’s what John wants.  

But then, John’s hand is on him, hot and heavy and John whispers against his neck, “No Sherlock. No. That’s not what I meant **.** ”

So Sherlock reluctantly stretches out and faces John again. John doesn’t seem pleased. John doesn’t seem happy. His mouth is bent in that thing it does when John is unhappy and thinks he did something wrong and Sherlock wants to erase that look from John, wants John’s mouth never to do that again.

John’s hand hesitates and then begins caressing Sherlock’s cheekbone. Sherlock wants to close his eyes but he can’t miss what’s happening on John’s face, what’s happening right now.

John says.

“Sherlock. This. All this – “

~~(~~ John makes a wild gesture with his hand that doesn’t mean a thing at all)

John sighs. 

“Sherlock, I think. I think we want the same thing but I need to be sure, absolutely sure of what you want because I’ve tried before and. It seems like things have changed. But I have to be sure.”

Sherlock doesn’t immediately understand what John means but then, _oh_. 

Oh. 

Sherlock looks at John, John who is so beautiful and perfect, and the only person Sherlock has ever wanted and says, “Yes.”

During all the years they’ve spent together they managed to build a language, a language that only exists between them, without poetry. Sherlock says _yes_ and John understands, like he always does. 

John can be blunt and hard and laugh at Mycroft’s attempts to intimidate him but John can also be delicate. John, right now, is delicate. He comes closer to Sherlock and cups Sherlock’s jaw in his hands (and Sherlock would feel mad for being treated so carefully if he wasn’t busy being overwhelmed at the idea, the very notion of John’s hands on him, so tiny, small fingers that hold guns and kill people and save people touching his skin) and John kisses Sherlock.

Sherlock’s mind goes blank.

John is kissing him and yes, Sherlock saw the signs, deciphered them but they weren’t making any sense because as much as he’s a rational being, a rational mind, John being attracted to him wouldn’t mean John acting on it, John being in love with him wouldn’t mean John wanting to be with him.

Sherlock is wrong, sometimes.

John kisses him softly at first, like he isn’t sure he’s going to be welcomed, like Sherlock could somehow refuse him. John’s mouth is on his, his beautiful mouth that told Sherlock he was John’s best friend, that told Sherlock he forgave him. John’s mouth is on his and Sherlock lets go. He lets everything go.

John kisses Sherlock like it’s the most important thing he has ever done, like he absolutely has to get it right and Sherlock responds in kind. Sherlock can feel a warm sensation coiling into him, and he knows, he knows he shouldn’t make those tiny broken noises but he can’t help himself.

Sherlock feels hot and everything is going blank around him and John is there, small and strong, compact and perfect, John is there against Sherlock and Sherlock knows who has the advantage here, who always had it.

It doesn’t matter. Sherlock has only ever wanted John and he opens his mouth to him, lets John’s tongue go inside him and he can feel it, feel John’s tongue claiming him, exploring him, tasting him. He can feel himself going weak with desire and all those poets were wrong – this is so much more, so much stronger.

John’s hand rests against Sherlock’s chest, regulating the beating of Sherlock’s heart. And when John stops kissing him it’s only to look at him underneath his eyelashes and to tell him – his voice rough – _please come to bed with me._

Sherlock knows this isn’t about them sleeping with each other, entangled but not acknowledging their thirst for each other. This is different. This is about taking the final step, the one they can’t go back from. It’s about them acknowledging that they’re in love, have always been, really, and then finally going to be brave and make love.

John is careful with him. Sherlock is spread out on the bed, feeling horribly exposed and John is strong and steady and looks at him like he’s the most beautiful thing he has ever seen and says –

_I want you so much_

_You’re so fucking beautiful_

_I’ve wanted you for so long_

_I’ve got you_

_I’m so in love with you_

Sherlock doesn’t know if you can actually combust from being in love, it’s not as if he has ever been in love before, Sherlock doesn’t know if this all-consuming feeling is normal but he knows that he wants John, and that John apparently wants him too, and that John thinks he’s beautiful and Sherlock could weep.

He doesn’t, not yet. He looks at John and lets himself open to John and lets John take him apart. John moves into him, steadily, John surrounds him, John is his entire world and Sherlock can only close his eyes and think about John, John’s cock pushing into him, filling him, making them one. Sherlock thinks it isn’t healthy to want something, someone, that much. But Sherlock also thinks it isn’t healthy to kill a cabbie for someone you just met the day before, to move in with a stranger the day after, to spend all your days together, to watch the most perfect thing in your life being trapped in semtex and thinking _this can’t be happening_ , to compose sad music because you’re so lost even Beethoven can’t help you, to jump of a building. Sherlock thinks it isn’t healthy to give a speech about how in love you are with your best friend when he’s marrying someone else, that said best friend couldn’t stand watching you speak to a woman without drawing you back to him – his arm on your back, on scars he didn’t know about then. 

Sherlock doesn’t care. It works for them and that’s all that matters.

Sherlock wishes they could merge into one being and finally be free.

When Sherlock comes, he weeps.

\---

John holds him afterwards. Holds him and whispers _I love you I love you I love you_.

Sherlock thinks about the ink under his skin.

Musset once wrote, _where do the tears of the people go_?

Sherlock doesn’t care about politics, or the people **,** but he cares about John. He hopes John’s tears go under his skin.

\---

It all ends in London.

(Mary dies, and John doesn’t hesitate, and Sherlock knows he should hate her but still loves her, and it’s a mess, it’s such a mess and it was so much easier when it was Moriarty, when Mary wasn’t a sniper at the pool who fell in love with John, when John was his and only his even though he didn’t know.)

It all ends in London.

\---

The cherry trees are blossoming in Regent’s Park.

John is still carrying his gun, still ready to kill for Sherlock, and Sherlock has tons of poetry books hidden at Baker street, books he acquired when John wasn’t there.

Sherlock knows he’ll never need to read them again.

John is enough of a poem.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [樱树花影里](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8218118) by [Pattypancake](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pattypancake/pseuds/Pattypancake)




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